In the wee small hours I am woken by a huge thundering crash and the ship gives a massive, sickening jolt. A voice comes from the other bunk: "God, I hope that wasn't an iceberg!" It's not, we're in the middle of a violent storm, yawing and pitching all over the place, our stuff is flying off the shelves and the force is such that you physically slide back and forth and side to side on the bunk. Sleep does not come easy now as apart from the movement and the loud crashes and bangs that continue unabated, thanks to Andrew I've now got scenes from Titanic playing in my mind every time I shut my eyes. (Where were the lifeboats on this bucket again?)
By breakfast next morning things have calmed down and Spain hoves into view. I ask a crew member if last night was a typical experience. He grimaces and shakes his head, "No. We don't usually have weather like that." The storm means that our arrival is 2 hours late and it's early afternoon before we disembark. The plan had been to get to Gibraltar by evening to stay with a friend of mine there, but that's now looking a little tight.
We top Phoebe up with 1.5l of water, which is a little disconcerting as we had only checked the coolant a couple of days ago and we've only done 90 km, but the warning light is now out. Andrew opts to take the day shift and we are soon rolling along the Santander seafront, it's a balmy 23 degrees, the sun is shining and people are walking around in T shirts - we're in Spain!
The road south out of Santander takes you up into the mountains so it is steep, very very steep. The Masseykissed's heavily-laden Rover is only a 1.4 and so starts to fall behind. But we've got problems of our own, the coolant level warning light is blinking furiously again and the temperature gauge is nudging up over 100 degrees, so we're crawling in 3rd and after each steep section we breathe a sigh of relief, only to round a corner to see yet another upwards section waiting for us, are we going to need oxygen masks, dammit?
The wisps of steam coming from the dashboard vents are the first sign that something just might be amiss. I turn the heater fan full on in the hope that this will help dispel some excess heat, BIG mistake. There's a cracking noise and suddenly within seconds the car is filled with thick choking steam that pours from all the vents, the windows instantly mist up making us totally blind and several litres of boiling, scalding water cascade down the bulkhead into the footwell and all over my feet. The heater matrix has split (it must have been leaking for some time, hence the constant condensation, but the boiling heat and increased pressure during the climb has caused it to blow).
The Masseykissed arrive a few minutes later. We are in an exposed and windswept location and Mike's advice is to bypass the heater, so we cut the inlet hose with a hacksaw, disconnect the outlet hose, bend the inlet hose round and connect it to the engine manifold outlet. Mike luckily also has some burns relief spray in their medical kit for my foot. So with Phoebe and me patched up we set off again, but now with no heater, shouldn't be a problem, I mean, this is Spain...
We part company from The Masseykissed at Salamanca at 20:00 as they decide to rest up and head South in the morning, so I take the night shift as we push on to see how far we can get, but it's probably too late to make Gib now. Midnight sees us reach Sevilla with torrential rain and sheet and fork lightning lighting up the sky. We are fortunate to find a hotel just south of Sevilla at 01:00 as they are actually rolling the shutters down for the night. The computers are down and they have difficulty booking us into our rooms as the storm has trashed their IT system. "We don't usually have weather like this." says the clerk apologetically...
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